Shapes in the murk

Cloud cover: 100%. So reads the weather report for most days recently. 98 to 100%. And we have barely 8 hours of daylight, but for the first and last of those hours it's too dark to read outside. Even when it isn't raining.

I'm not grumbling; that's our end of the year island weather; those misty days, the days of muted greys, of hillsides that blend into the sky, of tree silhouettes and the cries of gulls made musical in the damp air.

It wasn't raining, and there was no breeze to ruffle the water, so I went down to the docks to peer under the floats. Dock fouling, they call it; looking at the life that "fouls" the human structures. A one-sided way to look at it; don't our plastics and oils and trash contaminate the habitat of all that underwater life?

Anyhow. It was too dark, even at midday, to see much underwater. I saw orange starfish down on the rocks and many feather duster worms on the underside of the floats, all vague shapes in the murk. But there were bright white plumose anemones just under the surface.

Metridium senile, on an underwater hose. The seaweed is a blur in the dark water.

Many of the old pilings have been replaced by metal ones. I'm not sure why, but so far, even the algae have left them bare. But some of the wooden ones remain; here I found good-sized kelp crabs.

Creosoted piling, with barnacles and a leggy kelp crab, waving his chelipeds at me.

Armed and dangerous. Or so he wants me to believe. Lots of barnacles on this piling.

Another plumose anemone.

And another. The netting can be seen, faintly, through the flesh of the anemone.

This was very dark, and I had to jack up the lighting. The feather duster worm, to my eyes, looked dark purple. The sponge looked dull orange.

I kept that photo because of the leggy critters that crawl on the pipes. They look to me like skeleton shrimps; I haven't seen these under the docks before.

Skeleton shrimp, in my aquarium, 2015. Male (large) and pregnant female.

As I headed back to dry land, the sun was attempting to break through the clouds.

As bright as it got. This was at  3 PM.

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Nubosidad: 100%. Así dice el pronóstico meteorológico para casi todos los dias ahora. De 98 a 100%. Y nos quedan ahora apenas 8 horas de luz a diario, pero en la primera y última de esas horas, sigue tan oscuro que no se puede leer afuera. Y eso, cuando no llueve.

No es una queja; así es nuestro clima aquí en la isla hacia el final del año; esos dias de neblina, de los tonos grises apagados, de cerros que se desvanecen entre las nubes, de siluetas de los árboles y de los gritos de las gaviotas que se vuelven música por la humedad del aire.

No llovía, y no había brisa para levantar olas; fui al muelle para ver que se podía encontrar bajo los flotadores. Pero estaba bastante oscuro, aunque era todavía media tarde. Vi estrellas de mar en las rocas debajo del agua, y muchos gusanos plumero, pero todos como formas imprecisas entre las sombras. Pero sí había anémonas blancas justo debajo de la superficie.

    1. Metridium senile en un tubo. Las algas, sin luz, se borran y pierden sus colores.

Muchos de los pilotes viejos se han cambiado por pilotes de metal. No sé porque, pero hasta ahora  ni siquiera las algas se han establecido en ellos. Pero todavía hay algunos de los pilotes de madera; aquí encontré cangrejos kelp bastante grandecitos.

    2. Pilote pintado con creosota, con bálanos y un cangrejo kelp, amenazándome con sus quelípedos.

    3. Peligroso. Por lo menos, eso es lo que quiere hacerme creer.

    4. Otra anémona plumosa Metridium senile.

    5. Y otra. Se ve la red através de su carne translúcida.

    6. Este gusano plumero estaba en un sitio muy oscuro, y tuve que aumentar la luz de la foto. En el sitio, se veía de un color morado muy apagado, y la esponja, que aquí se ve amarillo estaba más bien un café algo anaranjado.

Subí la foto a causa de esos animalitos patilargos que se ven en la tubería. Parecen ser Caprellidae (que aquí llamamos camarones esqueleto, y no son ni camarones ni esqueletos).  No he visto estos antes en los flotadores, solamente en algas intermareales.

    7. Una pareja de caprellidae en mi acuario, 2015. El grande es el macho.

    8. Mientras regresaba a tierra firma, el sol trataba de penetrar las nubes, pero pronto volvió a esconderse. Esto fue a las 3 de la tarde.

Crab vs crab

 Kelp crabs are different.

Kelp crab juvenile, Pugettia producta

They have the same basic structure as the common crabs and hermit crabs we see on our shores; eyes on stalks, mini-antennae, assorted mouth structures, "teeth" on the carapace (crabs), 10 legs, of which two bear pincers. But the kelp crab's pincers are long and thin. They look fragile, but can deliver a good pinch. And they don't waste time waving their big pincers threateningly, like a shore crab; they act. Pick one up by mistake, and feel the sharp nip immediately.

"Normal" (meaning those that populate our beaches here) crabs mainly walk around with their belly to the ground. Kelp crabs stand upright, nose upturned.

"Normal" crabs dig burrows and hide underneath things. Kelp crabs, so far as I can see, do not. They hang around, upright, in the algae.

Kelp crabs wear a  hat. The one in my aquarium usually carries California rose seaweed, but sometimes decorates it with a bit of sea lettuce.

Kelp crab in the rose algae bush. He measures 2 cm. across the carapace. An adult male may grow up to about 9 cm. Plus a lot of leg.

My crabs and hermit crabs are always busy, digging, climbing, racing around, arguing, turning over shells, re-arranging the landscaping, eating. So far, the kelp crab spends most of his time lounging in the shrubbery. He comes out when I feed the others their shrimp pellets, grabs one, and returns to his patch of algae to eat in peace.

These crabs are algae eaters in the spring and summer, eating mainly brown algae such as kelp and rockweed. (They wear kelp colours, too, which makes them almost invisible.) When the winter tears up the kelp beds, they turn to eating small organisms, such as barnacles and mussels. And, of course, my shrimp pellets. My shore crabs eat anything, at any time. They're scavengers.

Green shore crab, Hemigrapsus oregonensis, just an infant. About 1/2 cm across the carapace.

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El cangrejo de alga roja norteño: una comparación con los cangrejos verdes y los ermitaños de nuestras costas.

El cangrejo kelp posee las características usuales de los cangrejos y ermitaños: ojos pendunculados, antenas pequeñas, un buen grupo de estructuras bucales, "dientes" en la parte frontal del caparazón (en los cangrejos), 10 patas, de las cuales 2 llevan pinzas. Pero las pinzas del cangrejo kelp son largas y delgadas. Parecen frágiles, pero son fuertes y pueden dar un buen pellizco, bastante doloroso. Y no se pierden el tiempo, como lo hacen los cangrejos costeños, mostrando lo grande y fuerte que son sus tenazas, tratando de espantar al enemigo; estos cangrejos kelp actúan de inmediato. Levanta un puño de alga que contiene uno de ellos, y ya te atacó.

Los cangrejos "normales" (bueno, normales aquí en nuestras playas) caminan con el abdomen en tierra. Los cangrejos kelp se paran con la cara en alto.

Los cangrejos "normales' excavan hoyos y se esconden debajo de rocas y conchas. Los cangrejos kelp no excavan. Según veo, se la pasan arriba, entre las algas.

Los cangrejos kelp llevan sombreros hechos de alga. El mío usa el alga rosa californica, pero a veces la decora con trozos de lechuga marina.

Mis cangrejos y cangrejos ermitaños siempre están ocupados. Excavan, trepan, se pelean, echan carreras, voltean conchas y piedras, arreglan la decoración del terreno, buscan comida. El cangrejo kelp flojea, descansando entre sus algas, sin moverse. Cuando les doy de comer sus bocaditos de camarón, se baja para agarrar uno, y pronto regresa a su puesto para comer tranquilamente.

Estos cangrejos comen algas en el verano, principalmente las algas rojas como kelp, pero cuando el invierno destruye sus plantaciones, se alimentan por mientras de animales pequeños como los bálanos y mejillones. Parece que mis bocados de camarón sirven también. Los cangrejos costeños locales comen de todo, en cualquier temporada. 

While I waited

 A browsing deer, tiptoeing delicately through the thimbleberry patch, hears me coming and stiffens into immobility, a few inches taller already; neck, ears, legs all suddenly stretched. If she thinks I may be a danger, she leaves, bouncing straight-legged through the undergrowth.

A bear doesn't bounce. He shuffles. Like a fat man in baggy trousers, not in any hurry, unconcerned, he plods down a trail. His apparent slowness is deceptive; he's gone behind the trees in a moment.

Range cattle. Heavy. Slow. They stand watching, pondering; should we move out of the way? When they make up their minds, its as if the weight were almost too much for their legs.

Every live thing has its own way of moving. Even when we capture only a glimpse, under the trees, in the undergrowth, half behind the rocks, we can recognize them by their gait.

The same goes for the tiny beasties, the flying, crawling, sliding critters. In a tide pool full of seaweeds, a flash of twisty,  splashing movement, gone in an instant, alerts us to the presence of a gunnel; a quick, sharp, straight-line dash into the dark is probably a sculpin. Crabs scuttle sideways, feet first and last. Flatworms ooze like a smear of oil. Anemones caught off guard shrink inwards.

In the aquarium, the crabs dig crab caves. Sliding to the right, dragging sand; slipping quickly back to the left, slightly downhill. Then back dragging sand again. Snails slide along so slowly, then suddenly haul themselves forward with a jerk as they bring their body up to their foot. Hermit crabs, even at rest, are never still; they wave long antennae and bright flag-like antennules constantly. Amphipods are in a continual flutter.

In the wet sand left after I washed off a new batch of eelgrass, a couple of the sand grains were moving. This way, rolling; that way, falling back. Looked like crabs to me, but so, so tiny! The hand lens confirmed it. I gently tipped the sand, with sand-grain crabs into the tank.

I saw them again when I next cleaned the tank, hiding in a corner away from all the activity. Still barely visible. Next, one turned up at the front of the tank, under a rock, excavating his miniature cave. Every time I passed, he was there, busy moving sand one grain at a time.

I found some time and got out the camera with the macro lens and the auxiliary flash, cleaned the glass and sat down to wait for him. And waited. He'd finished making his den, and crab-like, abandoned it to start digging somewhere else, out of sight.

It's all good. I took photos, while I waited, of other tinies.

Young hairy hermit, on section of kelp stipe.

The crab's rock. It was covered in barnacles, but the crabs (larger ones) have eaten most of them and now orange-striped green anemones have moved into the empty shells.

The same stone. With one of the remaining barnacles out fishing.

Eelgrass isopods. Usually they're green; this one, and her babies (look among the red algae beside her) are a dull grey.

The kelp crab again. He's lost his sea lettuce cap and added a bit of rockweed.

On top of the sand where I was looking for the crab, an amphipod.

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Un venado se mueve tranquilamente entre las hierbas, comiendo hojas de frutillas. Me acerco y se endereza, estirando las orejas y el cuello; parece que ha crecido en ese momento. Ahi se queda, como congelado, una estatua viva. Se le ocurre que yo pueda ser peligrosa y se aleja, saltando con las patas tiesas hasta desaparecer entre la maleza.

El oso no salta. Anda sin prisas, sin urgencia. Se ve como un viejo hombre gordo en pantalones grandes y flojos. Como si no te viera, como que no le preocupes, va holgazaneando hasta esconderse tras unas rocas.

Las vacas que andan libres por las montes. Son pesadas. Lentas. Se quedan paradas, mirándote, pensando; —¿Vale la pena salir del camino? — Se deciden después de un rato, pero es como si su peso fuera demasiado para moverse a prisa.

Cada cosa viva tiene su propio movimiento. Aún cuando solamente captamos un vistazo, una curva, unas orejas, unas ancas peludas, ya debajo de los árboles, entre la maleza, tras las rocas; aun así las podemos reconocer por la manera en que se mueven.

Lo mismo pasa con los animalitos pequeñitos, los que vuelan, se arrastran, corren o nadan en las grietas que pasamos sin mirar. En un charco dejado por la marea, lleno de algas marinas, un movimiento rápido, ondulante, y casi de inmediato detenido nos indica la presencia de un pescadito espinoso de marea. Algo que nada rápidamente, como una flecha dirigida al punto más oscuro probablemente sea una esculpina. Los cangrejos corren hacia un lado, con las patas por adelante y atrás.  Los platelmintos (gusanos planos) se escurren como un borrón de aceite. Las anémonas cuando notan nuestra presencia, se encogen y se encierran.

En mi acuario, los cangrejos se hacen cuevas. Se arriman hacia el derecho, jalando y empujando arena consigo, luego regresan sin carga a la oscuridad para recoger más. Los caracoles marinos se deslizan lentamente, y de repente dan un saltito para adelante, trayendo su concha al nivel de la pata. Los cangrejos ermitaños, aun cuando están parados, nunca se quedan quietos. Agitan las largas antenas constantemente, sacuden las banderitas (atenulas) arriba de la cabeza. Los anfípodos vibran continuamente.

Entre la arena mojada que quedó después de lavar un manojo de hierba Zostera, algunos de los granos de arena se movían por si solos. Rodaban para allá, caían para acá. Movimientos de cangrejo, pero ¡tan, tan pequeño! Con una lupa lo confirmé; era un par de cangrejititos. Con cuidado, los vertí en el tanque.

Los vi de nuevo la próxima vez que limpié el tanque, escondidos en una esquina lejos de toda la actividad. Todavía apenas visibles. Luego, uno se presentó en la pared de enfrente del tanque, debajo de una piedra, excavando su cueva miniatura. Cada vez que yo pasaba, allí estaba, ocupado en mover la arena, un grano a la vez.

Cuando tuve tiempo, saqué la cámara con la lente para fotos macro, y el “flash” auxiliar. Limpié el vidrio y me senté a esperar a que saliera mi cangrejito. Esperé. Esperé. No apareció. Aparentemente había terminado de construir su cueva, y a la manera de los cangrejos, de inmediato la abandonó para empezar a hacerse otra, en otra parte.

Total. Todo está bien. No perdí el tiempo. Mientras esperaba, tomé fotos de otras criaturas miniaturas.

Las fotos:

• Un ermitaño pequeño en un pedazo de estipa de kelp. 
• La piedra donde el cangrejito había hecho su cueva. La parte superior había estado cubierta de bálanos, pero los cangrejos más grandes los han estado comiendo. Ahora un grupo de anémonas ha ocupado las conchas vacías.
• Otra foto, con un bálano pescando.
• Una isopoda con su cría. Mira entre las algas rojas al su lado.
• El cangrejo kelp otra vez. Ha perdido su gorro de alga verde, y ahora lleva un pedazo de alga amarilla.
• Y en la superficie de la arena, donde buscaba el cangrejito, un anfípodo.

The latest style in hats

In the lower intertidal zone, most of the crabs I see are kelp crabs. A few years ago, I noticed that many of them are wearing hats. Green hats, usually.

Kelp crab, on the beach. The hat is made of sea lettuce.

Another one, with a tiny green hat.

A week or so ago, a couple of very small kelp crabs hitched a ride home in some rockweed I had collected for my aquarium critters. I discovered them when I washed the rockweed, and carefully — they were so tiny and looked so fragile! — moved them to the aquarium. Later on, I looked for them, and discovered that the larger one had collected a piece of the rose algae that grows in the tank, and attached it to his head.

I was down on the shore again after a windstorm that had tossed up mountains of seaweeds on the shore. A treat for my critters: I collected two kinds of rockweed, a piece of Turkish towel, then some Turkish washcloth, two varieties of sea lettuce, a red bladed alga, a handful of eelgrass, and a piece of kelp.

As usual, I washed them at home, and planted them in the tank. I checked back an hour later, when I had finished cleaning the pump. And there was the larger of the two small kelp crabs, in plain sight. And now, he had added a piece of green sea lettuce to his red hat.

"Kelly" wearing the latest fashion in headgear.

Central Coast Biodiversity mentions that these crabs attach bits of kelp (but mine has sea lettuce and rose alga) to little hooks just behind their rostrum. CCB says they're saving them to eat later, but Kelly here has been wearing his red cap ever since the first day here.

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En la parte baja de la zona entre mareas, los cangrejos que más encuentro son los cangrejos "kelp", Pugettia producta. Hace unos años noté que muchos de ellos llevan una especie de sombrero hecho de alga verde, Ulva sp.

Aquí hay dos fotos tomadas en la playa en 2016.

Hace unas semanas, en un ramo de alga café, llegaron a mi casa dos de estos cangrejos, muy chiquitos. Los encontré mientras lavaba el alga, y los metí en el acuario.

Más tarde, al mirar el tanque, vi que el más grande — aunque sigue siendo bastante pequeño — llevaba un pedazo del alga roja que crece abundantemente en mi acuario.

El otro dia, una tempestad aventó montones de algas y hierbas marinas en la playa, todos rotos y revueltos. Junté una bolsita llena de varias especies para unos antojitos para los residentes del acuario: dos especies de alga café Fucus sp., una hoja de toalla turca, además de otra alga roja, toallita turca, dos variedades de lechuga marina (Ulva sp.), otra alga roja, un manojo de la hierba Zostera, y un pedazo de estipe de kelp.

Todo eso, lo lavé en casa, y luego lo añadí al tanque. Una hora más tarde, vi que el cangrejo kelp ya había arreglado su sombrero, añadiendo un buen pedazo de alga verde al rojo. ¡Muy bonito!

Central Coast Biodiversity menciona que estos cangrejos pegan pedazos del alga "kelp" (pero el mío está usando algas verde y roja) en unos ganchitos que tienen atrés del rostro. CCB dice que los están guardando para comer después, pero mi cangrejito ha estado llevando el sombrero rojo desde su primer día aquí, sin comerlo.

Rainbow under rocks

The Willow Point beach is rocky; hard, round rocks, mostly cemented into the substrate. In the lower intertidal zone, they are often covered with green sea lettuce and rockweed. Where there is sandstone, it is pitted with green anemone holes. And everywhere there are barnacles, scuttling crabs, and tiny black snails. At the water's edge while the tide was turning, I flipped rocks and combed my fingers through the rockweed. Slow going, but worth the effort.

Here are some of the beasties I saw, in no particular order.

A flatworm, flatworm eggs, and two amphipods. This flatworm kept flipping her edges up towards me, instead of slithering along, as they usually do. It almost seemed as though she were defending her eggs.

A small kelp crab. This one's not wearing the seaweed hat. There was another with it, wearing the hat, just one patch of green algae growing near the top of the head. It ran away before I could get down to their level.

Limpet, periwinkle snail (or hermit in a periwinkle shell), two flatworms, and a pretty orange-striped green anemone, without the green.

Three limpets. Limpets wander about, lifting the forward edge as if to see where they're going. As soon as I touch them, they clamp down and cement themselves to the rock. These ones are still on the move.

Limpets, a whelk, and 6 of the tiny yellow or orange hermit crabs in periwinkle shells.

I haven't been able to identify these hermits. They are always tiny, and brightly coloured. I had at first thought they were greenmark hermits, Pagurus caurinus, which are the right size, but they have unbanded antennae; these little guys have green and white bands on their antennae.

Catching a few rays: there's a starfish, or maybe several starfish under this rock.

A fat ribbon worm. At the upper right, there's a small polychaete that I didn't see until I blew up the photo.

A two-toned polychaete.

This was the highlight of my afternoon. This worm has a blue front end, but the rear half is a bright pink. If you look closely (click on the photo to enlarge it) you can see the four eyes on the head. It's about 18 inches long. (More or less, these worms shrink and stretch continuously.)

There's a wandering ribbon worm, Paranemertes peregrina, with its purple back and cream belly, at the lower left, and a tiny greenish worm at the lower right.

Crabs wearing hats

In the lower reaches of the beaches of Campbell River, the most common crabs are the brown or olive green kelp crabs. On this latest visit, I noticed something I don't remember seeing before. Most of the kelp crabs were wearing fragments of sea lettuce, but only on their heads.

Dressed for a party

Floppy sun hat version.

Very tiny, very stylish.

Do crabs have fashion designers? Or ad agencies?

Fishing boat dock, revisited.

Last November, I explored the docks where the fishing boats tie up, peering down into the water between the dock and boat sides, and between the old creosoted pilings. The winter has come and gone; the sun shines down the cracks and into the dark crevices again. I retraced my steps yesterday.

There was a stiff breeze, strong enough to blow my jacket over my head when I bent over; the open water was white-capped. The docks danced on the waves, bouncing against the pilings, making squeaking, creaking noises; cables under stress whined, old wood groaned. I had to be cautious, poking my head down gaps over dark water, careful not to let a swaying dock pin my hand against a piling.

Last winter, I found shrimp, kelp, red rock, and black-clawed crabs, purple starfish, yellow sponges, anemones, and a nudibranch. And styrofoam. Too much styrofoam.

This spring, the population mix has changed.

There were still kelp crabs, most quite large.

A large kelp crab on a piling, half underwater. From the way she holds her abdominal plate, half open, I think she's in berry, carrying a mass of eggs. What looks like a lump on her right shoulder (our right) is probably an effect of the water; when she moved about, it disappeared. The blobs on the lower left are styrofoam-coated gunk.

Mussels, along the bottom of a boat. With pieces and dust of stryrofoam.

Around almost every piling, the edges of the dock were covered with brownish, matted weed and these pink and yelllow lumps. I think they may be peach ball sponge, or something similar.

Some of the sponges were a vivid orange. I don't know if these are colour morphs of one species, or three different sponge species.

A circle of twisty, lumpy chains. I saw only one, and couldn't get closer. The circle is about 2 inches across. Eggs, but of what species?

On one of those rubbery boat fender balls, large barnacles have lived and died, leaving empty shells.

These, rescued from an old rope, are pinkish.

I saw no shrimp, though I looked carefully. There were many tiny, darting fish, several orange starfish, down deep; one looked like a leather star or cookie star, with short, wide arms. I couldn't find any purple stars.

Above the water line, there's this:

Old wood, rust, cracked paint, and an opportunistic weed, going to seed.

And there's still too much styrofoam.

Piling critters

I noticed the smells first; salt, creosote, tar, old wood, engines, something mildly fishy. I was going down the ramp to the dock where the working boats, the fishing and tug boats, tie up, and the scents took me back to a time when I used to fish off a similar dock, catching supper. An old memory surfaced; old log pilings, tarred, at the end of a dock, and a big (well, maybe; I was little) octopus climbing up and peering out of the square opening.

I didn't expect octopuses here; starfish and anemones, probably. I walked down to the end of three long docks, squinting down every gap between dock and boat, every opening for pilings. There wasn't much to be seen; the boats are tied up, two deep, on each side of the dock. Very little light filters down underneath them. And many of the pilings are metal; fat, rusty pipes standing out of the water. Nothing seems to live on them.

But where I found tarred log pilings and a bit of reflected light, I found shrimp. And 'way down at the end of the last dock, where the sunlight penetrates to those log pilings, I found a starfish climbing out of the water. I got down on my knees, then lay flat, ending up lying for a long time with my head and camera down the hole between the pilings.

Because the pilings were alive with things crawling about.

The starfish, half out of water.

There were a fair number of purple starfish. Earlier, I had seen a few pale orange ones, deep down, one in not very good shape. But these were active, crawling about or hunched over something edible. They all looked healthy.

In the photo above, all that white stuff is styrofoam. Tiny, white balls of styrofoam. I found these all along the dock, along the water line of the boats, stuck to the tarry pilings. (Not the metal ones.) I had to keep brushing floating clumps aside to see the animals below.

There wasn't much in the way of seaweeds around the pilings or on the boats. I saw a few kelp streamers, loose in the current, and a few blades of red algae. There seems to be more underneath the dock, but I couldn't see more than bits of the edge.

Kelp crab, barnacle scars, and styrofoam.

The kelp crabs keep walking around and around the pilings; as one disappears on the far side, the first legs of the next show up. Round and round and round; I never saw any of them stop to eat anything, but they must be finding something worthwhile.

Older kelp crab, growing pale seaweeds on his back. He's deeper down; there's only a hint of styrofoam in the foreground. The little toe tips at the top belong to a pair of shrimp on the far side of the piling.

Much smaller crab, possibly the red rock crab, with barnacle scars and a few remnants of styrofoam.

Another coonstripe shrimp. With floating styrofoam. The yellow mound is some sort of sponge. And what's that down at the corner?

That mottled brown thing with the blue vanes showed up in quite a few photos; in each one, the vanes were in a different position. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed it while I was taking the photos, paying attention to the shrimp.

Mystery critter.

From the shape of this animal, and the waving vanes, I thought it might be a nudibranch, but I've looked at all those in my encyclopedia, and hundreds that Google found for me. Nothing looks right.

Comparing it with the shrimp, which was about 4 inches long, I would guess that it is probably about an inch long. There are brown, mottled nudibranchs the right size, the barnacle-eating nudibranch, Onchidoris bilamellata, for example, but the vanes would be gills, and they should be feathery, and maybe smaller. But they would explain the number of empty barnacle scars on these pilings.

Help!

What the wind brought in

For the second day in a row, the sun shone, although the wind was biting. In mid-afternoon, our planned activity for the day finished already, we  took a quick run down to Crescent Beach.

Even from our sheltered parking spot, I could hear the wind howling in the treetops. The gulls, dressed as they are from head to tail in feathers lined with down, were playing high overhead, shouting gleefully. Not us; on the shore, the wind went right through our heavy jackets, and after a quick foray out onto the flat sand, we returned, to hug the relative shelter of the bush and cliff face.

Here, we were surprised to find fresh, still damp, piles of eelgrass and bull kelp, several meters inland from the normal high tide mark, tossed there by recent storms. The eelgrass was twined around the roots of rose bushes and trees; the wind had even picked up clam shells and tossed them into the bush.

This clam shell was still rocking on the broken branch of an old stump, where the storm had snagged it. It has an eelgrass tail, barely visible as it whipped back and forth.  And yes, that's a piece of plastic candy wrapper on the stones.

Alder sprig, broken off, caught on a dead blackberry cane.

The eelgrass hadn't arrived alone. It was wrapped and tied around pieces of wood, branches, plastic, a lost glove, broken glass, many clam shells. Here and there, we found unexpected casualties.

Several dead starfish, far from their usual haunts.

I saw five kelp crabs. Someone had placed these two on a rock.

Kelp crabs live in areas which are continually under water. They congregate on pilings under wharves, or in the kelp and eelgrass of the intertidal zone, moving down as the tide recedes. On the wide, flat expanses of Crescent Beach, their habitat is far out into the bay; the tide races out too rapidly for them to survive closer to shore. These unfortunates had been swept up, past the sand flats, past the bare rocks, past the upper beach trail, to the roots of the hill, where they died.

This large crab was freshly dead, still wet and with all his limbs intact.

I'd never seen the underside; it turned out to be a brilliant red. Around the open abdominal plate, a few flies are beginning to feed.

And then the wind blew us back to the car and down the road to a toasty coffee shop.